


School Picture Day

by RaceyBoi



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 16:44:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12752199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaceyBoi/pseuds/RaceyBoi
Summary: That one soulmate AU where any marking on your souldmate's skin shows up on your skin.





	School Picture Day

Race slammed his lunch tray on the cafeteria table. “When I meet my soulmate I’m kicking their ass.”

A small laugh bounced around the table. Race’s soulmate was notorious for getting into fights, which usually resulted in Race covered in marks. None of the bruises or occasional cuts actually hurt, but he was still pissed each time he woke up with new ones.

“So the glasses,” Mush began with a chuckle, “Do you really have a-”

“Of course I do.” Race sat down and took off his sunglasses to reveal a sickly yellow-green color coating almost the entirety of his left eye.

A series of “Ooh"s was the next thing to erupt from the table, followed by a few more chuckles.

"They seriously couldn’t wait a day to get their ass beat?” Race pouted as he stabbed a straw through his milk carton. “I mean seriously?”

“Look at it this way, Race. You probably weren’t going to have a nice school picture anyway.”

“Awh, shut it.” Race threw a handful of cold, almost orange chicken nuggets at Romeo but he dodged them with a snicker. He sighed, to him this whole “shared markings” thing between soulmates was lame and useless unless your soulmate just so happened to get scarred in an obvious place. His soulmate just gave him extra freckles and some bruised cheekbones to work with.

Race glared across the table at Kid Blink, who had his arm around Mush, and then at Jack and Crutchie. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was kind of envious. Blink knew right away that the scar that appeared over Mush’s eye one day was his and all it took was a particularly hot day for Jack to realize the new scars on his leg were from Crutchie’s accident. Race had a funny shaped scar as if something was branded onto his forearm, but he practically lived in sweaters.

“Jealousy is an ugly look, Race.” Jack wrapped his arms around Crutchie and kissed the side of his head. Race blinked a few times, snapping back to reality.

“I ain’t jealous.” He sneered, “Just wanna find the little asshole so they stop getting hurt.”

“That so?”

“Course it is.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, making a disbelieving face of “Alright”, and Crutchie stifled a laugh. The table went back to its usual banter, Race joining the fun, until the bell rang for next period. Reluctantly, everyone dispersed and bid their “see ya"s as they separated in the hallway. Race, Katherine, and Jack went to the gym where PE was canceled in favor of taking pictures. The divider that split the gym in half stretched across the center. On one side, a photographer was set up and the gym teacher was calling kids down. On the other, a group of boys picked up a basketball while everyone else lolled around on the bleachers.

The three went to the top corner of the bleachers.

"How much to mess up my hair and clothes so this picture looks like I was jumped on school property?”

Katherine covered a smile with her hand, “As funny as that is, Race, they’ll just fix you before taking the picture anyway. ”

Race groaned and slid down so he was sprawled out on the bleachers, “I really can’t even get a prank out of this?”

“Afraid not.”

Race scoffed as the teacher called out for boys A-E.

After gym, the rest of the day went along as usual with the exception of Race and Smalls getting caught tricking the vending machine into giving them an extra bag of chips and their money back. The were only given an hour of detention and a strict warning not to do it again.

When detention ended, Race grabbed his phone from the front of the room and headed out. As it turned on, he got an influx of texts and missed calls from Davey, Katherine, and Sarah. None of the texts actually told him what the fuss was about, so he dialed Davey’s number. He picked up on two rings.

“Are you still in the school?” Davey sounded frantic, but excited.

“Yeah, why?”

“Come to room 313! We think we found your soulmate.”

“Holy shit.” Race whispered as he abruptly hung up. He took off dashing down the hall, made a sharp turn, and took the stairs two at a time. When he reached the room, he lingered outside of the door.

Race took a deep breath and wiped his palms on his jeans. He straightened his back and went in confidently, just in case his soulmate was in the room. They weren’t.

Katherine, Sarah, and Davey stood at a computer talking.

“Race!” Sarah perked up and ran over to Race, dragging him to the computer by his hand. She talked as she went, “So as captains, Katherine, Davey, and I were looking at everyone’s pictures, right?”

“Mhm, how does this have anything to do with-”

“Shh!” Sarah let go and exchanged Race’s hand for Katherine’s. “Shut up and put your face next to the screen.”

Race rolled his eyes and sat in the chair by the computer. Davey knelt down and abandoned whatever it was he was doing to pull up a picture. The three yearbook workers stood back and switched between observing Race and the image on the screen. Race suppressed the urge to pull a face.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Davey said “They’re definitely the same.”

The girls nodded and Race whipped his head around to see Sean Conlon’s yearbook picture. He was wearing his signature smirk and his left eye had the same sickly color around it as Race’s.

“Spot? No way.”

“Honestly,” Katherine said, “I don’t know how we didn’t see it? You’re both covered in freckles and got more when you reached Soulmate age.”

“Plus he’s stubborn enough to always get into fights.” Sarah added.

Everyone nodded and hummed little “mhm"s, but Race just stared at the screen. He subconsciously brought a hand to his bruised eye.

Spot and Race weren’t exactly enemies but they weren’t friends either. They talked smack to each other in gym when Race wasn’t in the weight room with Katherine and did whatever they could to get on each other’s nerves without being too much of a dick. Spot often left school after lunch, so it was somehow not a surprise that they never saw each other with bruised faces.

Race thought over in his head. His school went by block scheduling, which means he had four subjects on one day and four different subjects the next. Tomorrow was an A-Day, so he had computer science with Spot. Usually he sat on the other side of the room but he could always just sit near him and let Spot figure it out by himself.

Davey tapped Race’s shoulder. "Earth to Racetrack. You okay?”

“Absolutely peachy.” Race smiled and cleared his throat, “Thanks for this, but I gotta get home and check if Angie managed not to kill everyone.”

Everyone bid their goodbyes as Race left, but he took his time walking back to his grandmother’s house. With his baby siblings, there was hardly any peace and quiet in the house during the day and Race had to think. He felt kind of bad leaving his 14 year old sister with the four little hellions any longer than technically necessary, but he’s been taking care of these kids for a while and it was his soulmate at stake. He was gone for an hour before deciding it was best to bring up the subject to Spot in the simplest way possible.

The next day during lunch, Spot was sitting in his usual place under the football field bleachers with a joint in his hand. Race hesitated, telling himself that this wasn’t the right time, but then he remembered how happy all of the couples in his friend group are. He took a deep breath and started walking towards him.

“Hey! Got a nice shiner under those pretentious sunglasses?” Race smirked and sat down in the grass next to Spot.

“No way.” Spot breathed, more of being in denial than answering his question.

“Yeah.” Race scoffed, “That’s what I said.” He reached over and took the joint from in between Spot’s fingers, kind of surprised he was even allowed close to it. He took a drag, handed it back, and blew the smoke out. “Does this mean we have to be nice to each other now? Cause it’s pretty cute when you get pissed.”

“If you think the competition in gym class is cute, then you’re going to absolutely adore me.” Spot took off his sunglasses and placed them on the top of his head.

“You know what isn’t cute?”

“Your opinion?”

“These damn bruises.”

Spot laughed, a genuine laugh that wasn’t a snicker or meant to mock him, and Race felt the corners of his mouth go up at the sound. He always thought of Spot as beautiful in a rough sort of way, but never thought he’d ever actually mean anything to him other than a friendly harsh-competition.

“So,” Spot took another drag from his joint, then handed it to Race. “What do we do with this… interesting information?”

Race leaned his elbows on his knees, “What do you want to do with it?”

“You know the butterfly effect?”

Race went to talk, but was cut off as Spot kept going, propping himself up on his elbows. “Course you do, my soulmate is smart as shit.” Race laughed and Spot continued. “The theory is that a small thing can have a huge effect on everything around it, right? Well, like, five minutes ago I thought you were cute but it’s not like I liked you-”

“Thanks.”

“Shut up. And then you went and showed me we were soulmates and damn, Race, I don’t know exactly how to feel but I guess what I’m saying in the most complicated way possible is that I want to kiss you.”

Race snorted, a smile on his face and a look of amused disbelief. “You’re such a dork.”

“Shut your trap and get down here, Higgins.” Spot grabbed a handful of the front of Race’s shirt and pulled him down into a rough kiss.


End file.
